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Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates

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On 4/12/13 8:55 AM, in article 20130412174622.857@usenet.drumscum.be, "TomB"
<tommy.bongaerts@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2013-04-11, the following emerged from the brain of Snit:
> 
> 8<
> 
>>>>> It's simple: a mate desktop program doesn't fit in on a Gnome3
>>>>> desktop. Menus, widgets, icon sets... Completely different.
>>>> 
>>>> I would like to see examples of menu naming and placement
>>>> differences.
>>> 
>>> I said menu widgets, ie. the building blocks of the menus and
>>> toolbars. I don't think there are any /structural/ differences
>>> between Gnome2/Mate and Gnome3/Cinnamon, although there /might/ be.
>> 
>> Do you have a screenshot or video of something that would affect the
>> user?
> 
> Just look at the article I posted earlier. The difference between Gtk2
> and Gtk3 is quite obvious in the screenshots there.

Just in case other are jumping in: <http://i.imgur.com/HA1EU.png>

Yes, the chrome on the windows is very different, but even then it is
similar - taking up about the same amount of space, having similar rounded
corners, etc. Of course it would be better if the chrome was the same -
unless there is a user-based reason to have it be different (to show some
context change). 

But the chrome is not nearly as big of a deal as the other things I speak
about: menu names and placements, hot keys, etc. Those are the things which
at least seem to be the same to me and which you have yet to show there
being any difference. That is the question: other than the chrome, what are
the differences? Are there not just visual differences but *functional*
differences?

Again, this is not saying the visual differences are not important, but
functional differences are more important.

>>>>> Because people can do and will do whatever they like, no matter
>>>>> how many of us want UI standardization on the "Linux desktop".
>>>> 
>>>> Is anyone suggesting people should not use what they like? Not
>>>> sure what you are arguing against here.
>>> 
>>> If there's standardization, people (as in developers that is) can
>>> no longer do whatever they like. That's quite obvious, right?
>> 
>> If there are standards developers can *chose* to use this does not
>> stop them from doing otherwise.
>> 
>> Heck, on OS X a developer can make an application that works
>> horribly. Heck, many have... and they do not do well - they either
>> go away or are improved.  Ask the Firefox and OpenOffice teams about
>> this - they both realized they had to improve their product if they
>> wanted it to do well. They were not *forced* into this by anything
>> other than user demands that they make better products.
>> 
>> The whole idea of developers not being able to do as they wish is
>> completely *contrary* to my ideas... as I have made clear over and
>> over and over. I think the ideas I am talking about (which lead to
>> improved usability and greater choice) are so foreign to your way of
>> thinking you are having a hard time grasping them.
> 
> Your comparison between OSX and "desktop Linux" is skewed. The issue
> at hand is not that developers don't follow the "standards" of the
> environment (they do); the issue at hand is that there are multiple
> environments for one system.

That is the problem with desktop Linux. And I have faith that open source
developers can reduce that problem *without* reducing choice (as is done on
OS X - I certainly would *not* want to have that on Linux). You might think
this is wanting to have and eat my cake, but as we have already seen the KDE
and Gnome teams have already recognized the importance of doing much as I
suggest... and they have made improvements in their own "worlds" to better
systems - no reason to think they would stop there and not reach out even
more to each other.

> As far as I can tell your general position is that Gnome and KDE
> should agree on a common UI framework. Is that correct?

They should agree to make it relatively easy for developers to have programs
run well on either KDE or Gnome - including having at least most of the
functionality adopted from the system at hand (menu naming and placement,
hot keys, etc.). I will not speak on the specifics of how this should be
done, but having some sort of system services that programs can easily tap
into to figure out which UI they should have is clearly a part of it.
Ideally the user would be able to override this - say you are used to using
program X on KDE and now are on a Gnome systems... you might not want it to
match the system in general in this special case.

... 
>>> Including *NIX desktop environments like Gnome and KDE. I know this
>>> and I get the importance. Again this boils down to what you see as
>>> "the system".
>> 
>> I use terms in the common way: the system is the system - in the
>> case of desktop Linux it is the distro, or in context it can be a
>> specific system.
> 
> We have to agree to disagree here.

I think this is where a lot of our disagreements come from: terminology. I
generally prefer to use terminology in a more standard, industry accepted
way than you do.

But when talking about a "X" that people sit down to use, if you do not want
to call it a "system" what term would you use?

... 
>>> You're putting words in my mouth. The open source community
>>> definitely is capable of producing good systems. KDE and Gnome are
>>> two great examples.
>> 
>> If you think the open source ecosystem is capable of producing the
>> types of systems I talk about then what are you arguing against?
> 
> I'm arguing against the possibility of having one common UI framework
> on GNU/Linux, where any application can look native in any of the
> available environments.
> 
> That's your general idea, right?

Yes, though it might require having developers do more work to get this to
happen, similar to how programs can determine what language the system is
using and then adopt to that language. This does not happen automatically -
developers have to have resources for each language they support. Developers
might also have to do some additional work to support different DEs (hard to
imagine they would not have to do anything).

>>>>> For instance, the dialog button swapping that "got fixed" was
>>>>> actually on of those transitional things where GTK2/Gnome
>>>>> programs went from one way to the other, and not all programs
>>>>> were updated yet. Stuff like that happens *all the time*, and is
>>>>> in no way an indication of this "progress" you're talking about.
>>>> 
>>>> Look at PCLOS (...)
>>> 
>>> That was one of your examples from PCLOS and it is absolutely no
>>> indication of this "progress" as you see it. It was simply a
>>> transition from one layout to another that wasn't completed yet.
>> 
>> The improvement of PCLOS is clearly an example of improvement... and
>> it very much fit my predictions and COLA "advocates" very much
>> argued at the time that what I was saying needed improvement on was
>> not needed, was a non-issue, etc.
>> 
>> Again: one of the key points that is important to understand is that
>> I pointed out those problems and others *and* noted them as problems
>> *and* predicted that they would be improved over time...
> 
> And in the meantime other transitional "problems" like that have been
> introduced. Yes, stuff like that happens all the time. But this is not
> progress in terms of KDE programs appearing native on a Gnome desktop,
> and vice versa.

That particular problem has not been focused on much... and looking at old
PCLOS vs. new you can see why: there was a *lot* to get done before people
could even start to focus on bigger problems. But I have faith and trust in
the open source community that it can recognize and tackle and even be
largely successful in handling even these larger problems. I have repeatedly
said I do not expect perfection.

I think many in the open source community want systems to work better, want
more choices, and want things to continue to improve. I do not think
anything short of some apocalypse is going to stop such things.

-- 
"In fact, the main goal of Linux might be called usability... the most
important thing is that it works well and people ... want to use it."
-- Linus Torvalds

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Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates TomB <tommy.bongaerts@gmail.com> - 2013-04-09 20:12 +0200
  Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> - 2013-04-09 16:19 -0400
  Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Snit <usenet@gallopinginsanity.com> - 2013-04-09 13:56 -0700
    Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Steve Carroll <fretwizzer@gmail.com> - 2013-04-09 14:01 -0700
      Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Steve Carroll <fretwizzen@gmail.com> - 2013-04-09 14:18 -0700
    Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates TomB <tommy.bongaerts@gmail.com> - 2013-04-10 20:58 +0000
      Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Snit <usenet@gallopinginsanity.com> - 2013-04-10 14:42 -0700
        Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates TomB <tommy.bongaerts@gmail.com> - 2013-04-11 18:29 +0000
          Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Snit <usenet@gallopinginsanity.com> - 2013-04-11 12:50 -0700
            Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates TomB <tommy.bongaerts@gmail.com> - 2013-04-12 15:55 +0000
              Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Snit <usenet@gallopinginsanity.com> - 2013-04-12 09:56 -0700
          Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates JEDIDIAH <jedi@nomad.mishnet> - 2013-04-11 15:09 -0500
            Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Snit <usenet@gallopinginsanity.com> - 2013-04-11 13:44 -0700
            Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Hadron<hadronquark@gmail.com> - 2013-04-12 10:40 +0100
              Re: Snit posts decent article on Linux Advocates Snit <usenet@gallopinginsanity.com> - 2013-04-12 06:34 -0700

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